Saturday 18 October 2008

#81 Visit the Edmonton Corn Maze

Status: Maize maze completed (What? Too corny?)

If you're thinking I'm padding this list out with cool things I've done that weren't particularly challenging or life-altering experiences, you'd be right. Well done. Want a medal?

Last night we headed out to the Edmonton Corn Maze (location: just west of the middle of nowhere) to rummage about in some maize for a couple of hours. As an Australian who grew up in the city, it was a strange experience - but for my Canadian chums who came along, it all seemed a rather normal way to spend a Friday evening.

Here's what the maze looks like this year.  Heck of a crop circle, eh?

We arrived about an hour after sunset, so the atmosphere was suitably creepy. The fright factor was ultimately cranked to 11 after we discovered the place was swarming with teenage twerps whose idea of a good time was to lob ears of corn at each other while screaming obscenities. It's nice to see the young whippersnappers take a break from knifing each other in the city's grimy underbelly, but a cob of corn could honest to God knock you unconscious when hurled sky high. It made things tenser than that crop-dusting scene in North By Northwest.

Anyway, we grabbed two "passports" of varying difficulties consisting of questions that lead you from one point in the maze to another. The difficult one required an absurd knowledge of the Indianapolis 500, while the easy one (alright, it was "for tots") offered up the conundrum of whether corn is grown in outer space. I'm surprised we made it out at all.

#75 Watch Tim Burton's entire filmography

Status: Ashamed at just how far behind I am in updating this list

It's a bit appalling, actually - I've completed quite a few of the tasks on my list, but simply can't be freaked updating this blog. Fortunately, that hasn't been a task in itself yet, so I'm excused.

Anyway, is there a filmmaker more inspired and twisted than Tim Burton? Probably. But I'm a curmudgeonly old filmgoer who's rather stuck in his ways, so Burton will do just fine, thank you. His CV is nearly flawless, so it's always a joy to sit down and watch a film that seems to have been crafted with the sole purpose of terrifying children (a worthy cause if ever there was one).

On my return flight from London (an update on which is forthcoming, I promise), I watched one of Burton's few missteps; the curious Mars Attacks!. It's a movie I really want to like. It has a cast so ridiculously famous it begs for the creation of a letter preceding "A" because the term "A-list" doesn't nearly do it justice: Jack Nicholson (in two roles), Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Natalie Portman, Jack Black, Rod Steiger and Tom Jones (as himself). It's overkill in a film that is already brimming with ideas upon which it never quite capitalises; the only real perk is watching dozens of aliens promising to make friends with mankind before obliterating everybody, seemingly for kicks. They must've learnt from us.

Anyhow, here's my Tim Burton checklist and where it currently stands (oh, and I'm just going with feature films to keep it simple):
  • Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) - not seen
  • Beetlejuice (1988) - seen
  • Batman (1989) - seen
  • Edward Scissorhands (1990) - seen, resulting in considerable trauma as a child 
  • Batman Returns (1992) - seen 
  • Ed Wood (1994) - not seen
  • Mars Attacks! - seen
  • Sleepy Hollow (1999) - not seen
  • Planet Of The Apes (2001) - seen; Burton's only other misstep, as far as I've seen
  • Big Fish (2003) - not seen
  • Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005) - seen, and revelled in child torture
  • Corpse Bride (2005) - seen 
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007) - seen; it convinced me that singing and large amounts of blood go hand in hand
Most intriguing of all is Burton's next project - an adaptation of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - which will hit screens before my deadline for this list. Hooray for sheer wackiness.